■ Allen R. Rowland spent his entire career in the grocery business,
beginning as a grocery-store clerk at the age of 19. Within three years he
moved into the position of store manager of Miller's Supermarket in
Colorado Springs, Colorado. He established his reputation through 25 years
at Albertsons, a large retail food chain located in Boise, Idaho. He left
Albertsons in 1996 after reaching the rank of senior vice president and
running retail operations in the southeastern United States. He then
became the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Smith's
Food and Drug Centers, where he led the company through its acquisition by
Fred Meyer in 1997. In 1999 he became the president, CEO, and director of
Winn-Dixie, one of the largest food retailers in the United States, with
nearly 1,200 stores in 14 states and the Bahamas.

Rowland became a highly respected business leader with a reputation for
taking decisive and swift action. His strength lay in his ability to
instill organization while increasing profits and efficiency. He retired
in June 2003 after setting Winn-Dixie on a course for higher revenues
following four years of major reorganization and expansion.

EFFICIENCY AND PROFITABILITY: HALLMARKS OF A CAREER

When Winn-Dixie announced the choice of Allen R. Rowland as its CEO in
November 1999, it focused on Rowland's previous achievements. He
steered Smith's Food and Drug Centers through a major period of
reorganizing its operations, keeping the company focused simultaneously on
improving its efficiency and profits. He developed a reputation among
industry insiders as a leader who could create order in the most
disorderly of situations. When Rowland joined Smith's, this small
family-based business wanted to put itself on the market for purchase, but
it needed a major overhaul to be competitive. In just over a year at the
helm, Rowland negotiated Smith's sale to Fred Meyer, better known
as Kroger, for $2 billion. At Albertsons, Rowland earned a reputation in
the retail food industry as a cost cutter and streamliner. His past record
reflected his ability to make quick, decisive, and successful decisions.

The chairman of Winn-Dixie, A. Dano Davis, noted Rowland's
experience in large-store operations with an emphasis on customer service
as one reason for his appointment as CEO. Industry insiders also noted
that Rowland's experience with a family-owned operation in need of
organization was a major benefit for Winn-Dixie, which many felt in 1999
needed to be reorganized and turned around. By the time of
Rowland's retirement in 2003, Davis said that Rowland had not
disappointed them and that store operations had improved along with
Winn-Dixie's financial position.

Rowland introduced customer-reward cards as a way to boost sales. He
improved store operations and customer service while eliminating
under-performing products. Rowland called these changes
"rightsizing." One example of rightsizing was the
replacement of salad bars with bagged salads. Icepacked melon bars also
disappeared in Winn-Dixie stores under Rowland's leadership.
Instead, cut pieces of melon were placed in plastic containers in
refrigerated cases, which ensured less waste and higher quality for
customers.

Rowland introduced popular programs such as Upromise Grocery Service,
which allowed families to have a percentage of their Winn-Dixie purchases
deposited in a college-savings account. He is credited with developing a
strong senior-leadership team. He consolidated stores, aggressively
restructured management, and instituted performance-based incentives for
employees, while centralizing departments such as real estate, accounting,
purchasing, and marketing.

AGENT OF CHANGE

A. Dano Davis called Rowland an "agent of change." Merrill
Lynch noted in 2001 that, after two years in his leadership
role, Rowland had made impressive changes necessitated by the
"mess" he had inherited when he took over the reigns of
Winn-Dixie, Florida's third-largest public company.
Florida Trend
magazine said in 2001 that Rowland had taken action quickly and
decisively, "shaking up the grocery chain." He cut costs,
removed unprofitable business lines, and reorganized the company's
decentralized management structure. The magazine noted that one of his
first decisions had been to change advertising agencies after 35 years of
using the same company.

In his first year at Winn-Dixie, Rowland cut jobs and closed stores, which
resulted in a $400 million annual reduction in costs. The
Florida Times-Union
reported that Winn-Dixie closed 112 unprofitable stores, four
manufacturing plants, three distribution centers, and laid off 11,000
employees. In the middle of the restructuring, Winn-Dixie bought 106
stores from Jitney-Jungle of America, in Jackson, Mississippi, for $85
million. Rowland wrote in a press release on October 31, 2000, as quoted
by the
Florida Times-Union
, "This acquisition is a very good strategic fit for
Winn-Dixie" (October 31, 2000). He predicted that the purchase
would improve Winn-Dixie's buying power. Industry insiders said the
move could be good for the company, but only if Rowland's
restructuring plans continued.

The restructuring did continue and was completed within a year of its
initial announcement. Gross profits reached the projected level. Rowland
continued the expense-reduction programs and focused on training and
working with employees to improve customer service. Not all customers were
pleased, however, as was made clear when the
Florida Times-Union
interviewed shoppers in 2001. One woman said that even though she enjoyed
the service she received at the store, she had difficulty finding items
because they kept moving them on the shelves. Winn-Dixie responded by
saying they were trying to determine what products each of their stores
needed on the shelves, to better satisfy customers in individual
neighborhoods.

Rowland's restructuring of Winn-Dixie's management team
earned high praise from food-retail watchers. Burt Flickinger III, a
food-retailer professor at Cornell University, told the
Florida Times-Union
in 2000 that this initiative was "a brilliant master
stroke," and he saw Rowland's decisions as allowing a more
democratic structure into the business. Rowland brought all levels of
management into the decision-making process, regardless of seniority.
Industry analysts such as Flickinger saw this strategy as necessary to
revive the stale corporate culture that had permeated Winn-Dixie in the
late 1990s.

Rowland noted that he embraced working with a healthy mix of people with
different experiences. His strategy emphasized developing a new corporate
culture while stressing the need to give customers what they want.
Representatives from Standard & Poor's noted the ambitious
restructuring plan and watched the retail food chain carefully before they
raised Winn-Dixie's credit ranking.

Rowland was not known for his interviews with media. When the
Florida Times-Union
attempted to interview him in 2000, he refused, but he did respond to
written questions.
Florida Trend
, a magazine devoted to business in Florida, noted in its May 1, 2000,
issue that "Winn-Dixie's executives are notorious for
shunning interview requests, and the tradition continues with the
company's newest CEO." The magazine was told that Rowland
did not have an interest in interviews. Most of the information used in
articles on Rowland's career came from press releases from the
companies where he worked.

STREAMLINING AND ORGANIZING

Upon his appointment as Winn-Dixie's CEO, Rowland began applying
what he had learned at other companies. At the time, ten separate buyers
within its ten regional divisions negotiated and purchased retail items.
Within a month of his appointment, he announced that the company would
unify the buyers into a single department, which increased
Winn-Dixie's buying and bargaining power. Rowland announced this
change in a press release on January 18, 2000. He stated that the move
would improve efficiency by assigning "our most talented
procurement, marketing and merchandising associates" to corporate
teams. Rowland said the changes would "improve sales, reduce costs
and enhance our bottom line." Within a year those goals had been
achieved.

Winn-Dixie had worked with the same ad agency for 35 years. In 2001,
however, Rowland switched to Cramer-Krasselt, the fourth-largest
independent marketing agency in the country. He said that effective
communication with current and prospective customers had become essential
to Winn-Dixie's goal of increasing business.

Rowland's announcement of his major restructuring plan for
Winn-Dixie came on the heels of a dismal financial report in fiscal year
2000, with decreased profits of $20.9 million from the previous year.
Rowland refused to be interviewed by
Florida Trend
regarding the dismal results, but in a press release issued by the
company on April 20, 2000, he called the results "disappointing and
totally unacceptable." The day of the announcement, the board of
directors approved his restructuring plan.

The plan included the closing of three division offices, in Tampa,
Atlanta, and Louisville, as well as shutting down two manufacturing
facilities in Jacksonville. It also involved the renovation of six hundred
stores and the closing of nearly 30 stores, mostly in the Atlanta, Tampa,
and Louisville areas where Winn-Dixie had been struggling to retain its
market share against other companies. Burt Flickinger III noted that
Rowland was doing with Winn-Dixie what he had done at Smith's by
providing shock therapy for a business that had been stagnating in an age
in which megacorporations were taking
over smaller family-run chains. As quoted by Matthew I. Pinzur in the
Florida Times-Union
, Flickinger said Rowland was turning Winn-Dixie into "an
operational powerhouse" (April 21, 2000).

Rowland aimed to provide the best possible atmosphere for customers in
Winn-Dixie's grocery stores. He wanted to exceed customers'
expectations for good-quality products and clean, sanitary stores. This
goal coalesced with his strategies in streamlining management and
involving employees at all levels in the process. As quoted by Paul C.
Peralte in the
Florida Times-Union
, Rowland said he intended to staff stores with "the friendliest,
most helpful people in the community" (February 14, 2000).

SETS STANDARDS

Winn-Dixie, a family business and one of the South's leading
grocery chains, chose Rowland because of his ability, demonstrated at
Smith's, to take a family business through a transitional period.
By 1999 experts and analysts in the supermarket industry wondered if
Winn-Dixie had appointed Rowland to ready the company for acquisition.
Winn-Dixie maintained that it wanted to remain an independent chain, while
still being competitive. The industry watched as Rowland immediately began
making successful changes.

Industry insiders said that Winn-Dixie had been slow to change and not
aggressive enough to maintain its market share. One food-retail analyst
said in 2000 that Winn-Dixie had been known as a chain going nowhere, and
Wall Street viewed the company as one without a clear focus. With their
eyes on Rowland's appointment as CEO, the experts viewed it as
Winn-Dixie's move to become a major player in the retail food
business.

Prior to his appointment as CEO at Winn-Dixie, Rowland was known as a
genius and a coveted executive. One analyst noted that Rowland was
considered a "superb strategist" in the supermarket industry
because he knew how to cut out the diseased parts of a corporation. Once
Rowland had brought Winn-Dixie to the level of excellence he envisioned,
he decided to retire at the age of 59. Before announcing his intentions,
he brought in his successor, Frank Lazaran, to continue his strategies. A.
Dano Davis said that Rowland, who was hired by Winn-Dixie to be an
"agent of change," had been successful: as of 2003
Winn-Dixie ranked 149th on the Fortune 500 list.

See also
entries on Albertson's Inc., Smith's Food and Drug Centers,
Inc., and Winn-Dixie Store, Inc. in
International Directory of Company Histories
.